Bubbly Borussia Dortmund pass the 'Pepsi test' with relative ease

Jürgen Klopp's second return to Mainz saw him leave with three points after a high-powered pressing game between two
uber youthful sides

Borussia Dortmund's players celebrate in front of their fans after the 2-0 win at Mainz 05 which returned them to the top of the league. It was the youngest ever Dortmund team to play a Bundesliga match, at a fraction over 23. Photograph: Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images

It was the most improbable summit since Reinhold Meissner said "Servus" to a Yeti, and it was live in 185 countries. "I hope that one billion Chinese people will watch the game," the Mainz 05 general manager, Christian Heidel, said before kick-off. "I want them to see Mainz 05 and then come to visit Mainz soon after. It will definitely be a great advertisement for the club and city."

Heidel was obviously right in terms of sheer worldwide exposure, but he had perhaps underestimated the systemic dangers of comparative advertising. Mainz (top of the Bundesliga) v Dortmund (second) yesterday afternoon panned out like a "Pepsi test" in reverse: Borussia, not Thomas Tuchel's new kids on the block, were the real thing at the Bruchwegstadion. "They did everything better than us," Heidel said after the 2-0 defeat, "maybe better than we are actually able to do."

The second return of Jürgen Klopp to the club he made – and vice-versa – was always going to be emotionally charged. No one could have known a few months ago that the football would be so relevant, however. The two best Bundesliga teams of the season promised an intriguing battle of similar sides: youth and high-tempo pressing v high-tempo pressing and youth. Both had suffered their first real setback by getting knocked out of the cup in midweek, too.

The managers were full of praise for each other beforehand and Klopp paid his successor the ultimate compliment: Dortmund changed their formation to a 4-3-2-1 Christmas tree to congest the midfield even further.

Mainz blinked first. Wary of the visitors' aggressive fore-checking, Tuchel had prescribed a combination of direct short passing and the odd long ball. But his team found it hard to deal with the fact that the tables were turned on them for once. They unsettled themselves with a series of nervous, helpless back-passes and were lucky to survive the opening 20 minutes without conceding. Dortmund were almost unplayable.

Two mistakes from the Mainz right-back Niko Bungert paved the way for Mario Götze's fine opener – it was the minimum Borussia deserved. Götze, 18, is fast turning into the next big thing of German football. The son of an IT professor will be called up by the national team for the friendly against Sweden and is considered to be "one of the greatest talents we ever had" by the German FA sporting director, Matthias Sammer.

The youngest ever Dortmund team for a Bundesliga game – average age a fraction over 23 – hustled and harassed 05 into submission. "At times, they had three men attacking our man in possession; they're more advanced than us in that respect," said Heidel.

Tuchel, grateful to go into half-time only one goal down, took off Niko Bungert and changed the system to give Lewis Holtby more freedom up-front. As Mainz were having a go, Dortmund's defensive partnership of Neven Subotic and Mats Hummels became increasingly exposed. Subotic's untidy tackle on Adam Szalai resulted in a harsh penalty for the hosts but Eugen Polanski had his weak effort saved by the formidable Roman Weidenfeller. "It was the key moment, we got lucky," said Klopp.

Dortmund weathered 20 more minutes of Mainz attacks, then hit back with a beautifully crafted second. Lucas Barrios, fed by Götze, went past Christian Wetklo to decide the match. "They scored precisely when we were dominating; that broke our back," said Heidel.

"This is not a defeat to be embarrassed about," Tuchel insisted. "Dortmund have insane amounts of quality." But the 37-year-old could not hide his disappointment. "There were spells when we were not courageous enough to close ranks. Quality, calmness and confidence on the ball were missing in the final third." The centre-back Nikolce Noveski also blamed nerves. "It's not common for us to be so shaky," the Macedonian international said.

Mainz are still second in the table, only one point behind a Dortmund side that look poised to play a major role in the title race. They have the best attack, the best defence and they have managed to win their first five away games of the season – a new record. "Thinking about the championship does nothing for us," said Klopp. Good job he was wearing Kevlar underwear.

Talking points

• Demichelis, Gomez, Tymoshuk and Kroos scored: it was a festival of the forgotten and/or underperforming Bayern players against Freiburg on Friday night. The 4-2 win seemed to suggest things are slowly coming back to normal in the Allianz Arena. But up in his mountain retreat overlooking the Tegernsee, Uli Hoeness was harbouring dark thoughts. The Bayern president used a TV talk show last night to launch an astonishing, premeditated attack on the manager Louis van Gaal. He explicitly faulted the Dutchman for not backing the fringe players more. "You only have success if you keep all the players happy. That hasn't happened in the past," he said icily. "Now we see the players score who were almost shunted out in the summer." Asked whether he would try to convince Van Gaal to change his ways, Hoeness shrugged his shoulders. "It's very difficult to talk to him because he has his own opinion and doesn't accept anyone else's. There's not much to talk about [with him]."

The timing of Hoeness's outburst is difficult to understand. There's certainly an element of raw, emotional "I told you so" involved, because Van Gaal has openly undermined Gomez and Tymoschuk as players "signed before I came here". Politics comes into it, too, of course. Behind the scenes, a full-blown battle for the direction of the club has erupted. Van Gaal's stubborn refusal to buy new players in the summer has exasperated the board and his critique of Bayern's "open ear" policy vis-à-vis unhappy players in his autobiography didn't go down well either. "Players will always be able to come to us, if they have a problem. We are like a family," Hoeness told the Guardian in a sumptuous pre-match lunch at Freihof Brenner with international journalists, when the true extent of his anger was not yet apparent. A serious knee injury to Ivica Olic in training this morning will have done nothing to lighten the mood.

• Kaiserslautern's 3-0 win over Gladbach was a pretty sight in more than one respect. In honour of the 1954 hero and local god Fritz Walter, who would have been 90 years old yesterday, the Red Devils wore a sponsorship-free shirt with a Walter face on the reversible inside. Christian Tiffert scored a suitably beautiful goal: his long-range curler hit the corner of the net to give the home team the lead. "I always seem to score when it's my daughter Mila's birthday," said the happy midfielder. Stefan Kuntz, also a birthday boy – the supporters serenaded him before the game – had seen a small wish come true. "If I could paint myself a day, that's how I would paint it," he said. A Mark Rothko-like piece in various shades of red would probably do quite well. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon collector's market, where his name has a certain ring to it.

• The Sporting director Klaus Allofs was at a loss to explain Bremen's 2-3 home defeat against Nürnberg. "We are stabbing around in the fog a bit," he said. On reflection, he did identify one culprit. Mikaël Silvestre was singled out for giving the ball away before the visitor's second strike. "He is in a difficult spot and plays well below his ability," Allofs said, somewhat optimistically.

• Schalke 04 are still without a home win and in the relegation zone following a 1-0 defeat to Leverkusen in the Veltinsarena. The home side were unlucky to hit the woodwork three times yet the result had something of the inevitable about it. "There is too much fear in the team," said Raúl, who must surely rue his decision to move to the Ruhr area. Felix Magath, the king of the Royal Blues, is starting to get worried, too. "I don't have a panacea," he said. The good news is that he's amassed so much power – he's also the general manager and a board member – that getting rid of him is almost impossible. "Who in the world could determine a successor – apart from him?" wondered Die Tageszeitung.